Here’s another piece from the not-too-distant past that was published in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social back in 2021. I truly hope this zine comes back from its indefinite hiatus very soon because it is missed!

you can read a couple of the pieces from the collection here, in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social:

The nightmare of grief - flashback to a father on chemotherapy. Originally published by Anti Heroin Chic @antiheroinchic.bsky.social

"Tonight I contend that she died, but I lost her earlier. Like the time she took me to the grocery store so late at night I rubbed my eyes, pretended we were on a trip, each day I decide who to be, for or despite, my queen. Such quests, each memory. Painful as emerging form."

Sharing again for #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, from my poem called "Sometimes I Google You" in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social "we stormed that brutalist column you have to see it up here now-- there’s so much open air" It's here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

"Is this not the way of everything? See how these trees allow the wind to strip away their leaves. They raise bare arms in praise of letting go. Will you join them? Will you answer when your heart is shaken wakeful by the tremor of a shift? ...You, too, can modulate your life into another key."

"some babies are born with the blues, souls tuned to the minor or diminished fedoras permanently askew. some babies are born to the blues, pale eyes like searchlights or dark eyes like pools read sagas in cloud striations or the patterns leaves make against sky. some babies are born for the blues"

"Sobriety is waking up every morning Looking at the burn scars on my arm Like a constellation. Tracing the stars and piecing together the plot."

NEW POEM #228: "So Bound is Creation by the Cry of Trumpets" by Matthew E. Henry (@mehpoeting.bsky.social) "creation groans for the time when it’s not fit outside for man. when the cities have been cast down and all is unblemished" stonecirclereview.com/so-bound-is-... #Poem #PoetryCommunity

"to be a writer is to garnish an ache of the blossom and how it breaks to rise and open to a temporary light to be a writer is to dissect that very ache and build a muscle over the cold, hard bone"

"You’ve made a habit of asking before entering your own room, forgotten how to don a red apron and swing out of the weather house. Look how the spiderlings cast themselves on threads the colour of wind into the unknown. I’ve heard the sun can grow an oak, the robin testing every note it knows."

"I watch my father lay in bed fetal and pale. Like a newborn baby, like a chick in egg shell. He lays in his nest made of sticks, springs, and sawdust — made of malt, sweat, and ash. I wonder what his dreams are made of... and I witness how fast we wane."

happy birthday to this piece in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social :") heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

It’s Your Choice to unfasten your lungs, to breathe gentler air beneath despair, to fill every branching alveoli like the whispering trees—to feel crisp winter and glacier your wounds, to lose time’s cusp and find a ten-point buck in moon glow

"Every kid is born wanting to play Freeze Tag and Marco Polo, to look in the mirror and say, I like you, I really like you. Squint at your reflection as the glass panel beeps, You’re it."

It’s beautiful in DC right now. Peak bloom from the cherry blossoms and petals drift by wherever you walk, blown in from some distant or nearby tree. When I first transitioned, they were blooming, years ago. On this Transgender Day of Visibility, I am yearning for our own spring to return.

What are you doing Wednesday night? Come hang out with me and these 2 awesome guys!

"Every heart that is and remains Must be split open Cracked like the crust of your being When you know what it is to be born"

"You are a pageant of opulent flaws Not drum-tight and lush limbed and dewy But scandalously at home in your skin. You have the wisdom to marvel at your totality To rhapsodize the endless wonder of you To find your way back to that pink-tulled five-year-old and grow young again."

"I still go there sometimes not at night not alone but it’s where my friends hang out and just now I saw the advertising for the zenn-y little poetry group he leads there they call it a journey of sacred community and it’s hard when you finally understand what you are and what you’re not"

"listen, little child. Terrified fawn. I got us out. I know your greatest fear is to be left behind, forgotten forever. But now I’ve eaten you up like you’re medicine, my sweet little venison. You live in my belly, my chewed up savior, once swallowed down to hold their favor"

"Up I grew became close personal friend to grape and grain. No singing now. Sparks flew. Nights got later. Forty years of days shed like ash of putting my fire out."

"I look for loners, those of us who often stood aside observing, criticizing, hoping to be noticed. Today I’m surprised by our numbers. Perhaps being an outsider is healthy. And today, with strength in our numbers, we have become a faction."

"My mother has this thing where she brags about family members to other family members, but rarely actually tells the actual object of her admiration how proud or amazing or intelligent she is... if you have the power to give someone rocket fuel, why wouldn’t you want to count them down to launch?"

Two poems of mine, featured in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social a while back: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

"I know something about that, about splitting yourself in two but to save your own life. He’s coming at me again with that not-right look in his eyes. I know what comes next. Part of me is someplace else, not swallowed by his darkness. That part goes on like a whole person."

Since I'm new here, going to share some "previous" things including that I have a 48-page chapbook out from @diodeeditions.bsky.social. You can read about it on my website and purchase a signed copy (or buy from Diode)... bit.ly/DANCING-BACK...

My poem "Ukraine" from my chapbook Hiraeth. The other half of my family is Ukrainian.

"It’s Friday and I can’t remember what It’s like to love something the grocery store is lined with pumpkins again the season is mums plum purple, tangerine like childhood again. You are elusive again, golden-haired satin like holiday ribbons"

"I crawled onto the wasteland of mother’s bed and brushed her hair— almost unaware a little too hard—because dammit"

13 years since my father Michael passed away. ‘Dying King’ published with @antiheroinchic.bsky.social Content warning: grief - harrowing poem.

"my self as a clay figurine, freshly molded wet and slick, with wood-grain skin, distinct fingers and teeth, i use my fingers to sculpt myself again i smooth every ridge the way i was made is not the way i have to be"

"do not bury your grief / it is not dead / it is bone & fiber & blood & guts / it will turn / you inside out, even if you try not to let it / this is how you keep the dead alive / conjure them into the spaces around you / resurrect them, make them spirit, ghost / get haunted like that, my friends"

From a poem of mine, “We Could Break Forever,” first published by @antiheroinchic.bsky.social: “We have to fly down from the moon now. Flock / back to this gutted country. Show up with our throats shining.” heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

"The bailiff extends his hand and tells me where to go; looks at me like this is my first time, like I’m a stray dog with no heading. Maybe I am. The change in me quarrels."

Days pass but we still remember. And we should. Another Trans Day of Remembrance poem published by @antiheroinchic.bsky.social

Landing work in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social was always a wish, and now I can say it’s done! Two of my poems are in the new issue, including “Self-Portrait as a Father’s Son”. Check out my work here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Grateful to be included in Issue 36 of @antiheroinchic.bsky.social ! Thank you to the entire AHC team, especially James Diaz. Click through to read, "What It Takes to Solve a Crossword Puzzle," as well as work from outstanding artists around the globe. heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

4 pomes in the newest issue of @antiheroinchic.bsky.social heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Friends,I've 3 poems in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social,including one that mentions Nikki Giovanni,who I admire. Rest well. AHC is the first foreign lit mag that published my work 2 years ago,when I returned to poetry after a decade-long hiatus. So thankful for it. heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

My final publication of 2024 is now live in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social’s beautiful December issue. I am so honored to have been included with this vulnerable poem. Read it now at the link below. (CW/TW: gun violence and abortion imagery.) #writingcomminity heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Really pleased to share two poems in the most recent issue from @antiheroinchic.bsky.social—out yesterday 🖤 heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

I have three poems up at @antiheroinchic.bsky.social! About friendship & college & father-daughter relationships. Take a gander if you’d like:

New poem “Absolute Brooklyn” in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Thrilled to be included in the December issue of the amazing @antiheroinchic.bsky.social. Thank you so much James Diaz for your kind words. And thank you, sciatica. C/w stillbirth. heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-... #amwriting, #poetry, #disability, #chronicpain

Just got three poems out in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social ! One is new shit and the other two are in Profligate Angel, take a look! I love these poems yall. heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Had one of my Hersh drawings published by @antiheroinchic.bsky.social, grateful for the work they do. 🖤 heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/artwork...

2 of my poems appear in the dazzling Dec issue of Anti-Heroin Chic 💫 🙌🏼 Read them & the entire issue here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-liz-alani @antiheroinchic.bsky.social #poetry #poems #poet

check out “Steel” and “Nuked” in @antiheroinchic.bsky.social’s December issue. such a wonderful home these two from my Pittsburgh prose poem series found, alongside so many other beautiful words! check the issue out here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-...

Thank you again, @antiheroinchic.bsky.social, for publishing this essay. heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/elsewhe... I did not know whether I wanted to send it to her or not, but my dad sent it to her without me knowing. Now I’m just crying in my cubicle.